In 1953, after 35 years in business, my grandfather closed his shop and retired. He started as a private chauffeur in 1917 when the chauffeur was usually a mechanic, too. He drove a Locomobile, one of the most expensive and advanced cars in the world. In 1917, a Model T cost $360, a Cadillac cost $4,000 and a Locomobile cost more than $7,000 and weighed 5,500 pounds. Imagine being responsible for a gem like that at 19 years old.
In 1917, Pop had to make his own main bearings. He also had to service mechanical brakes, install tires on wooden wheels, adjust a brass hot-air carburetor and set up a magneto ignition system.
Imagine how much Pop learned in is career. When he retired, his customers' cars had an ignition coil and a vacuum advance distributor, a downdraft carburetor with an accelerator pump, hydraulic brakes and maybe an automatic transmission. Pop hadn't made bearings in years, but he had a valve grinder, ridge reamers and cylinder hones. He diagnosed cam and valve problems with a beautiful Snap-on vacuum/pressure gauge that I'm still using today.
I started as a full-time mechanic in 1972. Though I don't spend much time in the shop now, in 35 years I've gone from rebuilding carburetors to troubleshooting fuel injection systems, and from replacing points to troubleshooting electronic ignition systems. When I started, engines had only four wires and my diagnostic tools were a test light and a vacuum gauge.
Today I know how to use Mode $06. In my career, the industry has introduced new brake fluids and A/C refrigerants, new gasoline, new diesel fuel, three new types of antifreeze and a bewildering assortment of new motor oils.
Big changes indeed, certainly more radical than what my grandfather endured. But these are nothing compared to what we'll see in the next decade. Here are three automotive press releases from just this past year:
- Ford will introduce an all-electric 100-mile-range transit van in Europe this year. It might come to the U.S. as a hotel shuttle.
- Renault, the world's fourth largest automaker, expects one-fifth of its worldwide car production to be electric vehicles by 2015.
- China's BYD Auto will launch its e6 electric vehicle in China this year and in the U.S. next year. The car has a 250-mile range.
The piston engine will never go away because it's cheap, reliable and we'll always have a need for it. But there will be electric vehicles on our roads next year, and before I retire, there might be just as many hybrids and electrics on the market as there are gasoline cars. So it's likely there will be a car in your bay a few years from now that doesn't have fuel or ignition systems, no A/C compressor belt, no oil filter, no OBDII.
These are really big changes. But there are two things that won't change. One of them is you.
If a man who started in 1917 learned how to burn valve rings with a vacuum gauge, and if a man who started in 1972 learned how to use Mode $06, then you can learn whatever it takes to keep these cars on the road, too.
The other thing that won't change is your customer. People use cars to live their everyday lives, and you've always been the one they turn to when a broken car interrupts their life.
No matter how much cars change, they'll still need service and repair. Your customer will still come to you, and even if you don't know everything about their car, you know how to find out. You're the one.
